> The investment is no longer substantial in public R&D.
The US is spending over half a trillion dollars per year on R&D total, and the Federal Government is spending $113 billion - every year - on R&D. How is that not substantial exactly? A trillion plus dollars every ten years is a lot of R&D.
The US total spending on R&D as a share of GDP is about 40% higher than the EU and is about 30% higher than China's current ratio.
China's total R&D spend, between public and private sectors, is around $260b to $300b. So the US Federal Government all by itself is spending ~37%-43% of what all of China combined is on R&D. That's substantial.
Currently on an inflation adjusted basis, Federal spending on R&D is as high as it was in the late 1990s. There's a fair argument to be made that it should be perhaps $50 billion higher. Federal spending on R&D nearly doubled during the Bush Administration, and then flat-lined under Obama before declining in the last few years of his Presidency. If you continue the spending expansion of the Bush years, it would add up to around $50-$60 billion more.
The problem? The US has an inbound trillion dollar budget deficit, 2/3 of which consists of entitlement costs ballooning ever higher. Business spending on R&D has massively expanded in the last 30 years, going from $60 billion up to $360+ billion or so. To an extent I'm ok with that arrangement, the government can focus on more important things like entitlements. The $113 billion per year in Federal R&D is plenty to put toward long-term projects that the private sector isn't funding.
The ability to recognize key areas to build up capability is not discernible in absolute R&D numbers (it looks like FY2018 there is about $140B planned in total R&D). The other thing about your numbers is that we need to know if there has been a purchasing power adjustment to make them comparable.
With respect to the US Gov't R&D, you don't mention that about 50% of that R&D is for defense. Personally I would argue that a bigger split to non-defense uses would yield pragmatically better "defense" of the US. Of the non-defense funding, much of it goes to "FFRDCs" Federally Funded R&D Centers. There is this game that the US plays with liberal (in the economic theory sense) firewalls where we have increasingly bought into this ideological stance that the gov't should never compete with private interests. In contrast, I would guess that China's R&D went much more directly towards creating new industries. I think China is being much more pragmatic about it's R&D expenditures than the US.
The US is spending over half a trillion dollars per year on R&D total, and the Federal Government is spending $113 billion - every year - on R&D. How is that not substantial exactly? A trillion plus dollars every ten years is a lot of R&D.
The US total spending on R&D as a share of GDP is about 40% higher than the EU and is about 30% higher than China's current ratio.
China's total R&D spend, between public and private sectors, is around $260b to $300b. So the US Federal Government all by itself is spending ~37%-43% of what all of China combined is on R&D. That's substantial.
Currently on an inflation adjusted basis, Federal spending on R&D is as high as it was in the late 1990s. There's a fair argument to be made that it should be perhaps $50 billion higher. Federal spending on R&D nearly doubled during the Bush Administration, and then flat-lined under Obama before declining in the last few years of his Presidency. If you continue the spending expansion of the Bush years, it would add up to around $50-$60 billion more.
The problem? The US has an inbound trillion dollar budget deficit, 2/3 of which consists of entitlement costs ballooning ever higher. Business spending on R&D has massively expanded in the last 30 years, going from $60 billion up to $360+ billion or so. To an extent I'm ok with that arrangement, the government can focus on more important things like entitlements. The $113 billion per year in Federal R&D is plenty to put toward long-term projects that the private sector isn't funding.